James P. Cannon

Letter to Leslie Goonewardene

From Toward A History of the Fourth International

Written: February 23, 1954Source: Struggle in the Fourth International, International
Committee Documents 1951-1954, Volume 4 of 4, pages 49-50, from the collection
Toward A History of the Fourth International, Part 3. Education for
Socialists bulletin; issued by the National Education Department of the
Socialist Workers Party (US).Transcription\HTML
Markup: David WaltersEditing and
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Los Angeles, Calif. February 23, 1954 Leslie
Goonewardene

Secretary, Lanka Sama Samaja Party Colombo, Ceylon

Dear Comrade Goonewardene:

This is in answer to your letter of January 26, concerning the crisis in our
international movement, which we take as an offer to cooperate with the SWP in
organizational measures looking toward its solution.

As far as we are able to judge, there is a sound basis for such cooperation
in all fields. We study your press attentively, and do not see any serious
differences between your line and ours on the most important questions of
principle, as well as in their application in analysis and political action on
the most important events of the day. The two parties speak the same language on
the struggle of the workers and colonial peoples against imperialism and its war
program; and also on the concrete struggle against Stalinism and the analysis of
its policy, as it has unfolded in the events since the death of Stalin.

This political collaboration in developing the general external work of our
international movement—a collaboration long ago established in practice—really
ought to be extended to internal affairs. We take particular note of the
statement in your letter that the Lanka Sama Samaja Party “is in no mood to
tolerate anything pro-Stalinist within its ranks, either open or covert.” This
attitude coincides entirely with that of the leadership of the SWP in its own
internal policy. But we cannot stop there. As internationalists, it is
obligatory that we take the same attitude toward open or covert manifestations
of Stalinist conciliationism in other parties, and in the international movement
generally.

This is, in fact the touchstone of internationalism in the present
crisis.

Trotsky laid down this principle in the first formative period of our
international movement. In a circular letter of that time (December 22, 1930) he
wrote: “For a Marxist, internationalism consists, first of all, of the active
participation of every section in the life of the other sections. Only under
these conditions is there any sense in calling an International Conference later
on.” I cite this quotation as a “text” and introduction to the following
explanation of our position. A realistic approach to the present crisis must
take as its point of departure the recognition that the Fourth International is
no longer a politically homogeneous organization. The issues of the factional
struggle are matters of principle which put the Trotskyist movement squarely
before the question: To be or not to be. The attempt to revise the accepted
Trotskyist analysis of the nature of Stalinism and the Lenin-Trotsky theory of
the party, and thereby in effect, to deprive the Trotskyist parties and the
Fourth International as a whole of any historical justification for independent
existence, is at the bottom of the present crisis in our international movement.
In connection with this as a highly important, although subordinate issue,
matters of organizational principle—not merely procedure, but principle—are also
involved.

There is no way to get around the fact that we are up against a revisionist
tendency which extends from basic theory to political action and organizational
practice. We have not imagined this tendency or invented it; we simply recognize
the reality. We have become convinced of this reality only after the most
thorough deliberation and consideration of the trend of the Pablo faction, as we
have seen it manifested in its concrete actions as well as in its crafty
theoretical formulations and omissions. We have declared open war on this
tendency because we know that it can lead to nothing else but the destruction of
our movement; and because we believe that silence on our part would be a
betrayal of our highest duty: that is, our duty to the international
movement.

The fight on national grounds in the SWP is already finished, and the victory
of orthodox Trotskyism is definitive. The Pablo faction which threatened the
existence of the SWP, has been isolated and reduced to a splinter of a split.
The party is bounding forward with the development of its agitational struggle
against the raging reaction in this country—which in reality represents
incipient fascism in its specific American form—with firmly united ranks and
high morale. If we continue to preoccupy ourselves with the struggle against
Pabloism, it is not from national considerations, for such considerations no
longer have any urgency.

Our attention in the ideological struggle has shifted almost entirely to the
international field. We are fighting now in fulfillment of the highest duty and
obligation which we undertook when we came to Trotsky and the Russian Opposition
25 years ago. That is the obligation to put international considerations first
of all and above all; to concern ourselves with the affairs of the international
movement and its affiliated parties; help them in every way we can; to give them
the benefit of our considered opinions, and to seek in return their advice and
counsel in the solution of our own problems. International collaboration is
the first principle of internationalism. We learned that from Trotsky. We
believe it, and we are acting according to our belief.

Our international struggle against the new revisionism is not simply a
literary affair of the leadership, or a section of the leadership. The party is
constantly informed and consulted about every step we take; and the entire
membership, in all branches and locals, are completely involved in the
discussion. Our membership is experiencing in this international struggle, a
new, rich period of ideological life, in preparation for future tests of our
doctrine in action in the class struggle. Just as our party was created, in the
first place, in the fires of a great ideological battle over international
questions of major importance, so it is today being re-shaped and re-educated in
another battle of the same order.

The new, young cadres of the party, who have been recruited in the course of
our agitational work on elementary issues of the class struggle in this country,
are being introduced to the great issues which unify our party with co-thinkers
throughout the world. They are learning, in the course of this intense
discussion, the indissoluble connection between the policy of the party on the
simplest questions of the national struggle and the world program. We fervently
hope that the membership of the other national Trotskyist parties—not merely the
leading staffs, but the entire rank and file of the organizations—are being
similarly informed and involved in the present international discussion. Only in
that way will they re-learn and fully assimilate the full meaning of our
doctrine, and emerge from the experience as real Trotskyists who have once again
verified their doctrines in a test of struggle.

We have set forth our opinions in the Letter of our 25th Anniversary Plenum
to all Trotskyists throughout the world; in our criticism of the draft
resolution on “The Rise and Decline of Stalinism” adopted by the same Plenum;
and in numerous articles amplifying and concretizing the basic position outlined
in these documents. More of the same will fellow.

In the course of the open struggle we have already found basic agreement with
a large majority of the oldest and the most tested cadres of Trotskyism on the
international field. We expect to find agreement with all the real Trotskyists
in the further course of the discussion, which is only now beginning to unfold
in full scope.

Although not organizationally affiliated with the International Committee
of the Fourth International set up by the French, British, Swiss and New
Zealand sections—since the legal right of international affiliation is denied to
us by the Voorhis Law—we are in full solidarity with this International
Committee and fully support its stated aims, while retaining, naturally, the
right to offer this committee suggestions as to its course.

The International Committee of the Fourth International, as we understand it,
is the political and organizing center of the Trotskyist faction in the
international movement. In this respect, it is similar in its function and aims
to the International Left Opposition organized by Trotsky in his time. In
another respect it is different. The International Left Opposition had to
struggle as a small minority for the reform of an organization whose
cadres were already in an advanced stage of degeneration. The International
Committee of the Fourth International begins with the real relation of forces in
its favor in a movement whose main cadres remain basically sound and
revolutionary. Its stated objectives are not the “reform” of a movement which
needs no reformation, but rather the reaffirmation of the accepted program and
the removal of a usurping secretarial apparatus by administrative action.

Pablo and his personal circle have set themselves up as an autonomous,
uncontrolled and irremovable body, standing above the living movement
represented by the national sections and outside their control. Such a regime
is, in general, acceptable only to those sections without experience, definite
opinions, self-confidence or qualified leadership of their own, who implicitly
regard “the International” as a substitute for real national parties, and look
to Paris for instructions on all things great and small. Such a regime
unfailingly runs up against the opposition of those sections which have firm
cadres and democratically selected leaders who do some thinking for themselves,
and rightfully consider themselves a part of the international leadership,
sharing in its rights as well as in its responsibilities. This has already
happened, and could not fail to happen—first in the French section, then in the
Swiss, English, New Zealand and Chinese sections, and then in the SWP. The open
revolt of the Canadian section is taking place right now. Others will
follow.

The International Committee of the Fourth International is organizing the
revolt against the revisionist usurpers. According to the accepted rules of
democratic centralism this Committee has full right to exist and carry on its
work without threats or reprisals designed to throttle the discussion which this
committee is leading in the furtherance of its declared program. Factional
organizations in national parties are “abnormal” manifestations, since every
serious factional struggle entails the danger of a split. Nevertheless, our
movement has never prohibited factions, for it has learned from the costly
experience of the past that the cure is worse than the disease.

Even when the majority and minority in the SWP agreed upon a truce at the
Plenum last May, the Plenum resolution specifically stated that the minority
could maintain their faction if they wished to. It makes no sense to acknowledge
this right in national parties and deny it on an international scale. Like the
International Left Opposition, the initiating nucleus of our present movement,
the International Committee exists and functions as a matter of right; and in my
opinion, it should not and will not surrender this right under any threats or
reprisals from any source whatever.

I grant that the publication of the Open Letter of our 25th Anniversary
Plenum and the formal constitution of the International Committee of the Fourth
International were, as Comrade Peng, the International Representative of the
Chinese section of the Fourth International, has described them, “extraordinary
measures.” But there was nothing “illegal” about them. As Peng also said, they
were “revolutionary measures” imperatively dictated by an extraordinary
situation.

This extraordinary situation consists in the fact—and there is no getting
away from it, for it strikes everyone in the eye—that the personally-monopolized
International Secretariat of Pablo has attempted, and is attempting, to impose
upon the Fourth International a line of policy and political action not
sanctioned by our program or by any Congress, and against the will of the great
majority of the strongest Trotskyist cadres. The attempt of Pablo and his
personal circle to impose this unauthorized policy, and to choke off a free
discussion, by means of threats, expulsions, excommunications and other measures
of Stalinist discipline, confronted the orthodox “old Trotskyists” with
inescapable alternatives: to capitulate or to fight.

But precisely because they are “old Trotskyists,” precisely because they
learned in Trotskyís school how to stand up for their “old program” under any
and all circumstances, and to grant no one the right to proscribe it, they have
decided to fight. In taking part in this fight with all our strength, we are
simply remaining faithful to the tradition in which we were politically raised
and educated.

We know that some international comrades, primarily those who lack the
experience of the old struggles in which our movement was forged, have been
caught in the trap of organizational fetishism promoted by a usurping minority.
But the usurpers will not catch the SWP. We had to fight our way out of such a
trap in the old Comintern and we know all about it. Our procedure has nothing to
do with anarchism, arbitrariness or irresponsibility in organizational affairs.
Quite the contrary. We are fighting with the highest sense of responsibility, by
such means as are at our disposal, to prevent the prostitution of normal
organizational formalities to the service of minority rule.

In our theory and practice, organizational policy, important as it is in and
of itself, flows from and is subordinate to principled positions and political
aims. Without agreement on the latter, it is usually quite useless to count on
consistent cooperation on the former. Political disagreement, of course, does
not always necessarily exclude organizational compromises to maintain the normal
functioning of the movement while disputed questions are under discussion, prior
to a decision with the informed participation of the membership. As past
experience shows, however, the efficacy and even the possibility of such
organizational compromises are usually determined both by the extent of the
differences and the good will of both sides.

Do the necessary conditions for such a compromise now prevail in the Fourth
International? Or if, as we are convinced, they do not prevail, can they be
imposed by the intervention of responsible organizations, such as yours, which
have not yet taken a definitive position on the side of either of the contending
factions? We are open to conviction on this point, and ready to consider any
proposals put forward in good faith.

I feel obliged to state at the outset, however, that in my opinion the
prospects for the success of your endeavor, in the given state of affairs, are
not very good. At any rate, there should be no illusions of a quick solution by
a single action. Realism must compel us to recognize, that as the result of a
long chain of circumstances, the Fourth International stands on the brink of a
definitive split. The most that could be realistically hoped for now is that a
counter-process might be set into motion. Maneuvers along this line will do no
good; but honest proposals, which conform to the realities of the situation, can
count on our cooperation.

Our willingness to encourage any sincere effort in this direction even at
this late hour, must also be taken together with the distinct understanding that
our political position cannot be compromised; and that the necessary discussion,
now just at its beginning, cannot be summarily shut off or stifled by any
administrative decisions on the part of anybody. Eventual decision by a Congress
must come after the discussion, not before it.

From an organizational standpoint, the situation, as we see it at present, is
as follows: A factional struggle which concerns questions of political program
and policy, as well as organizational conceptions and procedures, is in full
swing throughout the international movement. This factional struggle has already
resulted in formal splits in the French and British sections of the Fourth
International and in the SWP (I leave aside for the moment the split in the
LSSP, which I will discuss separately.)

The Pablo faction, which found itself in the minority in each of the three
national organizations above mentioned, deliberately provoked these splits in
order to deprive the majorities of their legal rights, and is now working
deliberately to make the split universal. In pursuit of this aim, this faction
is resorting to arbitrary expulsions, excommunications, and removals of all
opponents in order to establish a fake majority at a rump Congress.

This formal international split, however, has not yet been fully consummated,
and this brings us to the main point in your letter: Does the possibility still
exist, as your letter states it, “of preventing the permanent breach.” That
depends not only on your party and ours, between whom there is neither the
political ground nor the will for any serious conflict, to say nothing of a
split, but also on the Pabloites. Their disposition, in turn, may possibly be
regulated to a certain extent by the position which your party and others take
in the next period.

The Pabloite faction at present lacks the forces and the support to effect a
“disabling” split, that is, a split which would fatally disrupt the Fourth
International and prepare the way for its dissolution, whatever their
disposition may be in this regard. One has only to look at the lineup of forces
to recognize that. Their projected “Fourth Congress,” to be held without the
participation of the majority of the strongest and most important sections, is a
foredoomed fiasco, since these “expelled” sections are internationally organized
and alert, and can neither be dispersed nor by-passed.

The consciousness of their weakness in this respect is undoubtedly
responsible for the maneuverist policy of the Pablo faction toward different
parties and different elements at the present stage of the struggle—their brutal
ultimatism toward those who have taken a firm political position against them,
and their simultaneous offers of conciliation and compromise, both political and
organizational, to those who have not yet announced a definite political
position in the dispute.

This two-faced maneuverism with respect to your party is indicated by their
special communications to you, to which your letter makes reference. You state:
“It seems to us from the latest communications of the IEC that it should be
possible to arrange for representation at the Congress to be accorded to all
Trotskyist tendencies which are ready to come in on the basis of willingness to
accept the Congress decisions.”

First of all, it must be recognized that this assurance to you is flatly
contradicted by the published decisions of the recent rump plenum of the
Pabloite IEC. These decisions specifically exclude from participation in their
proposed rump Congress not only the French, British, Swiss and New Zealand
sections, and all those who have expressed agreement with their declaration
(which now includes the Chinese section and tomorrow will include Canada), but
also those who may express agreement with them in the future. Their assurance to
you that, nevertheless, such “expelled” sections, and those who may agree with
them in the future, may somehow be represented anyway can only be regarded as a
ruse designed to deceive you as to their real program.

You say: “May we therefore ask you what you have to say thereon and whether
there is any manner in which we can assist to bring into the World Congress,
comrades and organizations whom the movement has so long held in the highest
comradeship, to whom the movement owes so deep a debt, and whom the Fourth
International can ill afford to lose.”

Although such an inquiry from the Pabloites, in view of their actions, could
only be regarded as a ludicrous masquerade—they want nothing better than to
“lose” the “old Trotskyists”—we have not the slightest doubt that you ask this
question in good faith. I will answer in the same spirit, with complete
frankness. The hour is late; but in my opinion, the present drift toward a
definitive international split, signalized by the holding of separate
Congresses, can possibly be arrested, and the definitive split prevented or
delayed, on certain conditions.

It is obvious that the first prerequisite for a realistic consideration of
your proposal is the unconditional cancellation of all the expulsions of genuine
Trotskyist parties, beginning with the French, and the announced discontinuation
of such procedures. As long as these expulsions stand formally on the books,
there is no basis even to discuss the question of whether the expelled parties
would participate in a common Congress with the Pabloites or not. Naturally,
those concerned are not going to pay the slightest attention to their
“expulsions.” Neither, in my opinion, would any of them agree to appear at any
Congress as convicts on parole, with special conditions attached to their
participation.

These parties cannot feasibly participate in a Congress of an organization
from which they have been expelled, or in which their rights are in any way
infringed. And it likewise goes without saying that serious revolutionists will
reject out of hand any proposal that they participate in any Congress that is
rigged against them in advance, or on any other basis than that of equal rights
and full representation according to the strength and importance of their
organizations.

The “special condition” now being bruited about by Germain, in his capacity
as attorney and “orthodox” frontman for Pablo, that the expelled sections be
required to agree in advance “to accept the Congress decisions” is based on a
historical precedent absurdly inapplicable in the present conflict.

This “special condition” was, in fact, devised by us in 1940 to close the
doors of the Emergency Conference of the Fourth International to the
Shachtmanites who had broken with the organization and betrayed its program. The
Emergency Conference of 1940 had been called to put the formal seal of approval
on the decisions already taken by the majority in defense of the program and the
organization. The Shachtmanites simply wanted to use the Conference as a forum
for another round of discussion without taking any responsibility for its
decisions. The “special condition” was merely an answer to an obvious
maneuver.

The present attempt to lay down the same condition to the sections united
under the International Committee, has none of the justifications which prompted
its first use 14 years ago. The expelled sections have neither betrayed the
program nor split from the organization. They are not seeking access to a forum
of discussion and have no desire to degrade a World Congress to that level. They
are still members of the Fourth International and will continue to be such under
all circumstances. What is required in their case is not an extension of the
privilege of participating in a Congress of their own organization, with special
conditions attached, but simply a restoration of their rights.

It has always been self-understood among Trotskyists that membership in their
organizations presupposes an obligation on their part to respect its decisions
honestly arrived at by a majority after a democratic discussion. The demand that
they make special pledges in addition to such self-understood obligations, has
to be brushed aside as an infantile insult, as well as a too-clever maneuver
designed to deceive some members of our international movement who are not
sufficiently acquainted with its practices and history.

The second prerequisite, to prevent, or at least to delay, a definitive
international split, is for the Pablo faction to cancel their announced decision to hold their congress at an early date. That could only be a congress of a faction. The holding of a congress by either side, at the present time, would only formalize the international split. A joint congress, prior to adequate discussion in the national sections, the clarification of all issues in dispute and the informed decisions of all sections upon them, could be expected to yield the same results.

As I understand it, the International Committee of the Fourth International
has thus far confined itself to the organization of the forces of the orthodox
Trotskyist faction in the development of the international discussion. It has
not yet projected an international congress; and I believe it will refrain from
doing so until the discussion is completed and all the sections—not merely the
leading committees but the organizations as a whole—have had adequate time and
opportunity to study and discuss the questions in dispute and make their
decisions.

The Pabloite IEC, on the contrary, has simultaneously announced the exclusion
of all its opponents, including ten of the elected members of the International
Executive Committee, and set a date for the holding of the “Fourth Congress.”
These cannot be recognized as anything but deliberate actions designed, first to
split the movement and then to formalize the split by a so-called Congress. In
order to prevent, or at least delay, the definitive split, your first demand,
therefore, should be for the postponement of this announced Congress of the
Pabloite faction.

The SWP, on its part, has already suggested to the International Committee of
the Fourth International that it defer action on a formal Congress, and will
repeat the suggestion once again.

A World Congress, if it is to have any real meaning and binding force in the
present situation, must be fairly organized after a free and democratic
discussion in which all the sections have had the opportunity to familiarize
themselves with the issues in dispute, to take positions on them, and to
instruct their delegates accordingly. The World Congress must be a congress of
delegates representing organizations, who come prepared to make
decisions, with the authority of these organizations behind them.

Can Pabloís personal IS, or his rump IEC, from which 40 percent of the
elected members have already been excluded, be trusted to organize such a fair
and democratic Congress? No, that is totally excluded. It would not be realistic
to suggest such trust to the expelled sections. If the elementary rules of
democratic organization had not been violated by the Pabloites in the first
place, there would be no splits in the several parties today, and no talk or
prospect of an international split. The expelled sections would certainly
require guarantees.

In my opinion, the Trotskyist faction united in the International Committee
would consider proposals for a common Congress as a serious project, and not as
a mere maneuver, only after substantial proof of a radical change of
organizational policy on the part of the Pablo faction. Mere talk about
such a change wouldnít do a bit of good. The test is action, as suggested above.
There would have to be guarantees; and they would have to begin at the top,
where all the trouble started. If and when the tangle begins to unwind at the
top, a gradual straightening out of the snarls at the bottom would naturally
follow.

There are certain things about which one should not jest. A World Congress of
the Fourth International is far too serious a matter to maneuver with. If we
recognize that, and regard the Congress with all the seriousness and
responsibility which it deserves, we must recognize that the time for another
Congress has not yet come. Nobody can invent a formula to work a miracle. To put
hopes in an early Congress to work the miracle, before the conditions for it
have been prepared, would only lead to disillusionment. I feel obligated to tell
you this frankly.

Nobody will doubt your sincerity and good will when you say: “we would add
that if there is any manner in which our good offices can serve in ensuring a
single World Congress in which the entire forces of world Trotskyism will be
represented, we would be only too happy to make ourselves available in that
behalf.” If and when the time comes for a united Congress, after the conditions
for it have been fully prepared in advance, your good offices can without doubt
be an important factor in guaranteeing its representative, democratic character
and, consequently, the authority of its decisions.

You err, however, in bringing the question of the Congress into the
foreground as the central question at the present time, and in expecting more
than a Congress could possibly give under present conditions and at the present
stage of the struggle. This exaggerated estimate of the potentialities of a
Congress at the present time, is expressed in your letter as follows: “In
particular, may we earnestly plead with you to persuade the New Zealand, British
and Swiss majorities, and those associated with them elsewhere in the working of
the Provisional Committee to come into the officially planned Congress and to
fight the battle there, thus rendering a full-scale battle on these issues, with
all sides drawn up in full force and array, possible at the official World
Congress.”

The SWP will most certainly act as you suggest, if and when preliminary
conditions are established, such as to give a reasonable assurance that the
projected Congress can be a democratically representative body. But the primary
function of the Congress will be to put the official seal of formal approval on
decisions already made by the participating organizations on the basis of full
information and adequate discussion. More than that even a well prepared and
democratically organized Congress cannot give. And since these preliminary
conditions for such a Congress are not yet established, any serious program
designed to “serve the purpose of preventing the permanent breach in world
Trotskyismís forces which seems now to loom before us”--must begin
with a demand that the Congress be postponed.

The conflict in the Fourth International will not and cannot be decided by
debates at any projected Congress. It will be decided by the democratic action
of the membership of the national sections after they have discussed the matter
fully and made up their minds, and instructed their delegates accordingly.
Thatís the way the Fourth International was created in the first place, and
thatís the way it will be re-created and rise again this time.

International has steadily cultivated a fetishistic conception of the powers
and potentialities of congresses and committees which has no sanction in the
long tradition of our movement The Fourth International is not a Congress, or an
International Executive Committee. Still less is it a subcommittee of the IEC
known as the International Secretariat, or a subcommittee of the International
Secretariat known as the “IS Bureau.” To put the matter bluntly, but all the
more correctly, none of these bodies has any real significance except as
representative bodies of the movement. When they fail to have this
representative character, or lose it for one reason or another, they forfeit
their powers and the right to speak and act in the name of the movement. That is
the case right now with the Pabloite committee.

I know very well that such bluntly expressed conceptions have been derided as
a peculiar “American heresy.” But there is nothing heretical about them at all.
The movement of the Fourth International, from its inception, was built
precisely around these conceptions; and every time attempts were made to depart
from them they encountered the brusque repudiation of Trotsky himself. He would
have nothing to do with the idea that a collection of individuals could get
together in a Congress and settle everything.

All that we know about the real meaning of revolutionary internationalism was
learned and re-learned in the school of Trotsky. It is necessary to return to
this teaching once again. Whether we like it or not, the Fourth International is
going through a crisis of reorganization, and we need a principle to steer
by.

No one could justly accuse Trotsky of underestimating the importance of
formal international organization, committees, etc. In the first four years of
his final exile—from 1929 to 1933—he struggled consistently to give the Left
Opposition a definite organizational form on an international scale. From the
time of the Stalinist betrayal in Germany in 1933, his whole political activity
was pointed toward the constitution of the Fourth International.

But he did not begin in either case with international conferences or
congresses. He began with the work of preparing such gatherings beforehand, so
that when they finally convened they would actually represent real organizations
united on theoretical and political positions previously arrived at in free
discussion. He was continuously plagued by conference fetishists with their
proposals to unite the movement organizationally and settle questions which had
not yet been settled beforehand. He would have nothing to do with such
proposals.

Moreover, when serious differences arose within the ranks of the
International Left Opposition, as they have arisen in our international movement
today, his first reaction was never to rush through a conference or congress to
decide the disputes there. Just the contrary. His unvarying response was to
propose a postponement—even of a conference already projected—until the disputes
had been clarified and a selection of forces had taken place in a previous
discussion. I can give you numerous examples of that procedure.

When occasions arose—as was the case more than once—where elected committees
failed to represent those who had appointed them, and departed from the program
which they had been elected to defend, he promptly demanded the replacement of
such bodies by others of a representative character. In the early days the
International Secretariat was reorganized at least half a dozen times. The same
thing was done with the International Executive Committee, in 1940.

Perhaps it is not generally known in the International that in the 1940
struggle in the SWP, the Burnham-Shachtman minority was supported by the
majority of the resident IEC of the Fourth International, at that time located
in New York. (This was prior to the passing of the Voorhis Law.) Burnham and
Shachtman, who had been elected as the representatives of the SWP at the
Founding Congress in 1938, together with Johnson and Lebrun, from the British
and Brazilian sections respectively, made up the majority. These gentlemen also
referred to “the statutes” and pronounced themselves irremovable, despite the
fact that they had abandoned the program of the Founding Congress on which they
were elected and no longer represented the majority opinion. They still claimed
the formal right to speak in the name of the Fourth International. But neither
Trotsky nor the SWP would tolerate these pretensions.

The Convention of the SWP (April, 1940) paid no attention to the formalistic
arguments, which were undoubtedly in their favor. The Convention declared
Burnhamís and Shachtmanís mandates null and void and replaced them by others who
had remained true to the program. In cooperation with Trotsky, and on his
initiative, we then organized an Emergency Conference of the Fourth
International, with only a handful of delegates from those sections which stood
by the program and were able to attend, and set up a new International Executive
Committee. The Shachtmanites and their supporters howled to high heaven against
this revolutionary procedure. They invoked the statutes and claimed that they
could be removed only by a World Congress which they, as a formal majority of
the functioning IEC, would have the sole right to convene. Trotsky gave a
contemptuous answer to these pretensions in the following words:

“As the French say, we must take war-time measures during a war. This
means that we must adapt the leading body of the Fourth International to the
real relationship of forces in our sections. There is more democracy in
this than in the pretensions of the unremovable senators.” (Emphasis added.) You
can find this reference on page 164 of In Defense of Marxism.

If one wishes to condemn the SWP for its undoubted violation of strict
organizational formalities in the present crisis, he can strengthen his case by
citing this proof that we acted rather irregularly in a similar situation once
before. We would have to plead guilty to this indictment too. But at the same
time, we would offer in our defense the fact—which hardly anyone today would
deny—that the resolute action taken at that time on the initiative of Trotsky,
rearranged the leadership of the Fourth International in accordance with the
real relation of forces, saved the continuity of functioning of the Fourth
International, and protected its program against the revisionists of that time.
Our present action has the same purpose, and no other.

There is still another instance in the history of the Fourth International of
a similar action to break through formalities in order to protect the program
and assure the leadership in accordance with the real relation of forces. Once
again, after Trotskyís death, when the IEC elected by the Emergency Conference
in 1940, departed from the program and defaulted in the functions assigned to it
by the Conference through the defection of Logan and the German
retrogressionists (IKD), a new body was improvised to carry on the work until
the Second Congress in 1948. This improvised body, consisting of the European
Secretariat plus some additions, directed the international work without
statutory authority from 1945 until the World Congress in 1948. The SWP
supported this improvised committee, not because of its formal authority—which,
strictly speaking, it did not have—but because of its orthodox stand against the
revisionists of that thne, a consideration which stood higher in our eyes.

I donít believe that in any of the cases cited, did the defaulting committees
so flagrantly violate the trust that had been given to them, or so grossly and
bureaucratically abuse their official powers, as have Pablo and his personal
circle. If the orthodox Trotskyists were to recognize organizational formalities
as the highest law, and agree to govern themselves by the rules laid down by the
usurpers, the wrong would have no remedy. The irremovable secretary could
maintain himself in office until he finished his destructive work, and even be
certified in this right by a Congress, by the simple expedient of expelling his
opponents beforehand.

That is precisely what would have happened if the SWP had remained silent,
and if the revolting sections of orthodox Trotskyists had not organized their
struggle under the International Committee. It is a great mistake to separate
the Open Letter of the SWP and the Declaration of the International Committee
from their contextual circumstances. In the circumstances they were
political actions of the highest order. They may be approved or
condemned on that ground; but it only adds confusion and aids those who profit
by confusion, to judge them purely and simply by an organizational
yardstick.

A crisis involving questions of program and policy has never yet been solved
by putting organizational considerations first. The history of the movement is
saturated with proofs of the relentless operation of this law of revolutionary
politics. The case of Abern in the 1940 struggle comes immediately to mind as an
illustration, carried out to its tragic denouement. But the most tragic
illustration of all is that of the political oppositionists in the Russian
Communist Party and the Comintern, who sought to outwit the Stalinists by
submitting to their formal disciplinary rules. By that, they only facilitated
the destructive work of the Stalinist revisionists; and the fetishists of formal
discipline themselves, all of them without exception, ended up as wretched
capitulators.

I must tell you frankly that I think the LSSP entered on a dangerous path
when it adopted its resolution condemning the publication of our Open Letter, in
advance of taking a position on the political questions in dispute. Unless the
LSSP radically changes the political line expounded it its press, it will be
compelled to recognize—and that in the very near future—that its line is
contrary to the line of the Pabloites and very near to, if not identical with,
the line of the SWP. Meantime, your action gave objective political support to
the Pabloites and counted more in their favor than all the stereotyped
resolutions of the Pabloite handraisers.

I have the definite impression that your action was motivated by the
conception that the formal unity of the international movement is the most
important consideration at the moment, and by your sincere desire to maintain
this unity. If my impression is correct, your action contained a double error.
Formal unity is not our first, nor even our second, principle; it is not the
most important question in the present situation; and your action did not serve
the cause of unity anyhow.

The first concern of Trotskyists always has been, and should be now, the
defense of our doctrine. That is the first principle. The second principle,
giving life to the first, is the protection of the historically created cadres
against any attempt to disrupt or disperse them. At the best, formal unity
stands third in the order of importance.

The cadres of the “old Trotskyists” represent the accumulated capital of the
long struggle. They are the carriers of the doctrine, the sole human
instruments now available to bring our doctrine—the element of socialist
consciousness—into the mass movement. The Pablo camarilla set out deliberately
to disrupt these cadres, one by one, in one country after another. Arid we set
out, no less deliberately—after too long a delay—to defend the cadres against
this perfidious attack. Our sense of responsibility to the international
movement imperatively required us to do so. Revolutionary cadres are not
indestructible. The tragic experience of the Comintern taught us that.

Have you read the account of the struggle in France in the Bulletin of the
International Committee? That is something to make oneís blood boil. The French
Majority have stood up for two years against unimaginable bureaucratic
injustices, manipulations and intrigues, and have shown their revolutionary
calibre in the test of the French General Strike. But if they had been allowed
to remain in isolation much longer, to fight alone without international
connections or support, they could hardly have failed to suffer discouragement
and demoralization. The first letter in the Trotskyist alphabet says that no
national party can stand alone, and sustain a correct revolutionary policy in
this epoch, without international collaboration and support

The cadres of British Trotskyism, so painfully assembled in long years of
experience, under the terrible handicap of inadequate and unworthy leadership
for so long a time, were marked for attack in the summer of 1953. We saw this
incredible operation develop step by step, like a series of irrational actions
in a nightmare world. But it was all too real. The British section of the Fourth
International would be a shambles today if the leading cadres had been
abandoned, and left without international support against the treacherously
deliberate campaign to disrupt them.

The letter which Comrade Peng addressed to me, published in the February,
1954 Discussion Bulletin of the SWP (No. A-15), is one of the most devastating,
and at the same time one of the most poignant, documents in the history of our
movement. Here is a heroic section of the Fourth International, with 25 years of
experience in a struggle which has cost them many victims. This cadre, by
rights, should be estimated as one of the greatest treasures of our
international movement, the pledge of its future in the Orient. Our Chinese cadre
should by all means have been encouraged, nurtured and assisted in every
comradely way. Instead of that, we have seen them hounded, persecuted and
derided as “fugitives from a revolution.” The SWP leadership felt very deeply
and bitterly about the abominable mistreatment of the Chinese comrades. We felt
that we had kept silent about this scandal too long, especially after we learned
that Pengís “Open Letter to Mao,” and the “Appeal of the Five” against the
murder of their comrades inside China, had been submitted to the International
Secretariat last May and were never distributed to the national organizations.
These documents, of such great political urgency and historical importance, were
only published in October—five months later—when The
Militant finally received copies by independent means.

Most alarming of all to us, were the repeated reports we had direct from Hong
Kong that the cadre was stagnating without perspectives, feeling isolated and
helpless in the international movement, and appealing to the SWP for aid. Pengís
letter confirms the reports of the comrades in Hong Kong that the organization
“was more and more approaching the edge of disintegration.” He further states
that since the publication of the SWP Letter, “they have recovered their
original confidence.” I consider this alone a sufficient justification of the
actions which have been taken by the SWP and the International Committee to
rally and unite the real cadres of international Trotskyism.

The formal unity of the international movement is important. There is no
doubt about that. But formal unity has no real meaning, and is not worth a cent,
if it represents a fictitious legal form to cover the actual disintegration and
demoralization of the old cadres. “The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth
life.”

But even from the standpoint of preserving the formal unity of the
international movement, your resolution had a contrary effect to that which you
intended. The real Pabloites—that is, the conscious revisionists and
liquidators—after all, donít represent very numerous forces.. They are ready for
any adventure, as we have already seen in France, England and the United States;
but there is not much that they can do by themselves. Least of all could they
take the road of a definitive international split at the present time. For that,
they need the cover and support of orthodox elements and organizations whose
support can be attracted on formal organizational grounds and other
considerations of a secondary order.

Germain, the only one of the Paris group who retains any standing among the
orthodox Trotskyists, renders that service to them in Europe; and,
unfortunately, his maneuvering is not entirely innocent. Your resolution,
despite your intentions, had the same effect. It emboldened the Pabloites to
take further organizational measures of a disruptive character in the direction
of a definitive international split. They would hardly have had the courage to
take these actions if they had not been able to count on your support, as stated
in your resolution.

To the extent that your resolution may have been designed to stop, or to slow
down, a drive toward split from the other side, it was also misdirected. From
the very start, the forces united in the International Committee did not set an
international split as their goal. They were sure they could win a big majority
in a fair, democratic discussion and saw no need of a split. But at the same
time, they began with a resolute determination to fight without compromise to
reinstate the basic program, and to stop the disruption of the cadres, and to
permit no considerations of a secondary character to cut across this line of
principle.

We have no reason to doubt that the real movement of world Trotskyism,
represented by its cadres, will be united on this basis in any case, and that
the revisionists will be isolated and rendered powerless to disrupt this unity.
All doubts on this score will be settled when the orthodox Trotskyist national
organizations decide to put first things first, and to align themselves in the
factional struggle with those whom they agree with, or stand nearest to, on the
most important questions.

Trotsky said many times that the real political position of any group or
party is determined by its international alignments, even more than by its
resolutions. Internationalism is the test and guiding line of every national
group or party in the modern epoch. And the touchstone of internationalism is
international alignment. So taught Trotsky.

The SWP is in favor of the unity of all Trotskyists in one faction, as a
stage on the road to the re-unification of the Fourth International, on two
fundamental points, as stated in its Open Letter of its 25th Anniversary Plenum:
The reaffirmation of the orthodox Trotskyist program, and the recognition that
the historically-created cadres are the human forces upon which we must build.
The Trotskyist faction of the Fourth International does not require agreement on
tactical questions or other questions of secondary order, including questions of
procedure in the factional struggle. Differences on these questions are not only
permissible and subject to discussion. Such differences cannot be prevented, and
it would be stupid to proscribe them.

But in order to discuss such questions profitably, and to settle them either
by agreement or majority vote, it is necessary first to establish the principled
framework within which the proposals can be discussed, and to agree upon the
aims they are designed to serve. Discipline is a problem of second-rate
importance for real Trotskyists, and is taken as a matter of course, as long as
the things that unite them are more important than the things which divide them.
When this condition prevails, they advocate and observe an iron discipline. When
this condition is lacking, the attempt to enforce conformity by police measures
becomes a horrible caricature of discipline, capable of producing nothing but
splits. There is plenty of experience to convince us of that, and the Pablo
regime has provided additional proof.

For the reasons given we have started our struggle to unite in one faction
only those who are in principled agreement, and will continue along the same
line, expecting and allowing for differences on tactical and organizational
questions. The Pablo faction on the other hand, is attempting to gather up
anybody and everybody, the orthodox and the revisionists, as well as those who
donít recognize the differences, as long as they agree to certain organizational
rules laid down by the Pablo faction, or interpreted by them as they see fit.
The difference between the two factions, as far as methods are concerned, is the
difference between principled politics and unprincipled combinationism.

Since there are no discernible differences on the most important questions
between us and the LSSP, we expect to find agreement with you for cooperation as
members of the same faction. We do not see how this cooperation can be avoided.
A decision to that effect by your party would virtually settle all doubts of the
victory of orthodoxy in the internal struggle in the international movement. It
would also operate powerfully to protect the formal unity of the movement in two
ways: First, it would be a warning to the Pabloites that any adventure with a
formal split would be doomed to destruction. Second, it would bring to bear the
influence of your party for moderation, responsibility and restraint within the
councils of the orthodox faction.

Our comments on the pro-Stalinist split in the LSSP were not based on
disinformation, as your letter suggests, but rather on deductions from the role
played by Pablo in France, England and the United States, which we knew very
well. We, like all the other parties in the international movement, were kept in
the dark while the crisis in your party was unfolding. The first information we
received about the full seriousness of the pro-Stalinist disruption in the LSSP
was contained in press dispatches in the New York papers last October, on the
eve of our 25th Anniversary Plenum. These dispatches told of a split at your
Congress and reported that a third of the delegates had demanded uncritical
recognition of the leadership of the Soviet bureaucracy before leaving the
Congress. We also heard that the Silva group had quoted Pablo and Clarke at your
Congress. Prior to that, we had heard only rumors of some kind of a
pro-Stalinist tendency in your ranks and had assumed that it was an isolated
group of no great importance.

We could not separate the developments in your party from similar
manifestations in our own ranks, which had been cultivated and encouraged by the
Pabloites from the beginning—although they avoided any explicit pro-Stalinist
formulations themselves, and conveniently disavowed their factional supporters
in Seattle when they carried the Pabloite revelation to its logical conclusion
and openly went over to the Stalinists.

We received no documents, no official information whatever, from the
International Secretariat while the pro-Stalinist faction in the LSSP was
building up its struggle toward the split. At the same time, Pablo tried to lull
us to sleep, and to assure us that our apprehensions about the tendency toward
Stalinist conciliationism in the SWP were unfounded, and contrary to the general
trend in the international movement. He actually wrote to Manuel, under date of
March 23, 1953:

“Since the Old Manís death up to now we have not had to deal in the world
movement with pro-Stalinist tendencies (I donít speak of individuals
here and there) who have capitulated or wanted to capitulate to Stalinism, but
on the contrary with tendencies which have gravely erred in the opposite sense .
. . . It is there that the principal danger lies, and there is still the danger
today against which we have effectively fought. All those who have quit us have
not gone to the Stalinists but to the reaction and have become both
anti-Stalinists and fierce anti-communists.”

In the light of the actual situation in your party at that time—which was
known to him but unknown to us—this statement can be considered as nothing but
deliberate deception. I must say, to our credit, that we did not take this
reassurance for good coin as far as the SWP was concerned. We campaigned against
Stalinist conciliationism as an alien tendency in our ranks, and thereby
protected the party from a disabling split on that issue. When the Seattle
Pabloites openly went over to Stalinism, they gave the party members all the
confirmation they needed of our warning and put an end to all possible further
recruitment into the Pabloite faction in the SWP.

The International Secretariatís letters disavowing the pro-Stalinist faction
in the LSSP, after the latter had dispensed with hypocritical formulations and
unfolded its real pro-Stalinist program, does not convince us that this faction
was not instigated and encouraged, directly or indirectly, in the first place.
It is simply inconceivable that 8 out of 17 members of your Central Committee,
just one short of a majority, could submit a pro-Stalinist resolution unless a
favorable atmosphere had been previously created in the international movement;
and if it had not received some direct or indirect encouragement to begin the
struggle.

It goes without saying, that no one can propose an unambiguous
pro-Stalinist policy in any section of our movement, raised and educated in the
doctrine of Trotskyism, with any hope of success. The Seattle Pabloites
recognized this when they accompanied their open avowal of Stalinism with a
formal withdrawal from the party. The Open Letter of the SWP stated correctly
that Pabloís method is to introduce Stalinist conciliationism in graduated
doses; to maneuver the movement in that direction step by step; and to accompany
the maneuver with disruptive assaults on the orthodox Trotskyist cadres by
instigating factional opposition.

Thatís the way the game was worked in France, then in the United States, and after that in England. Now we have the testimony of the Chinese that the same perfidious operation was attempted there by offering the Chinese student in
Paris the “support” of “our International” in a factional struggle to overthrow
the Chinese leadership. (See the Letter of S. T. Peng in the SWP Discussion
Bulletin No. A-15, February, 1954, page 10.) From our knowledge of
Pabloís real intentions, as they have been revealed by his devious and
treacherous maneuvers to disrupt the cadres in other parties, we came to the
logical conclusion that he was playing the same game in the LSSP. And we still
think that is the case. However, the open defection of the Silva faction will
not put an end to these maneuvers. It is not convenient for Pablo to engage in
an open conflict with your leadership at the present moment. His hands are quite
fully occupied, for the time being, with the revolt of other sections organized
under the International Committee, and he badly needs the organizational support
of the LSSP on any basis that it can be secured. But if he could succeed in
breaking up the orthodox cadres in other parties, the LSSP could be the next
easy target at any chosen time.

In this letter I have placed your international obligations as of first
importance in determining your policy in the present struggle. But this is not
meant to suggest that you should sacrifice the interests of the LSSP to the
higher interests of the international movement as a whole. In fact, the two
cannot be separated. The future of the LSSP, as a Trotskyist organization, also
depends on the victory of the Trotskyist faction in the international
struggle.

The LSSP—more than any other party, I venture to say—requires an
international leadership which will be a source of strength and support to its
Trotskyist orthodoxy—the sole condition for its survival and eventual
victory—rather than an organizing center of creeping liquidationism and
disruption. If, as I strongly suspect, you have a secret Pablo faction in your
midst, its present tactics in Ceylon, as in Canada, will be to subordinate the
political discussion and political issues to the single issue of organizational
formality, until the international split is completed with your support.

The LSSP would then be the next place for the secret Pablo faction to come
into the open with a disruptive attack against the leadership—in the name of
“our International.” Such an eventuality cannot be averted by diplomatic
maneuvers, but only by an action. The adoption of a firm position by the
leadership on the issues of principle, and a corresponding alignment in the
international factional struggle, would be the surest way to protect the unity
of your party against future attacks.